Pull request
Request for a change, based on an existing branch.
Meaning
While on your local repository, you can always merge one branch to another, when working on a project with somebody else, you should never do it directly, but via pull request instead.
Doing pull request will allow you to specify where you want to integrate your change, while it will allow the reviewer to check the change, possibly propose changes and then the reviewer can do the merge.
While this dance around the integration might seem redundant, it has many benefits:
- the code will be seen, your collaborator will be better aware of the change
- the code can be improved before integration, giving you valuable coding lesson